Drama Films: Mise-en-scene (symbolic codes)

Symbolic Codes

Location and Setting:

Filming in real urban settings can add realism to a drama. The set choice is key to creating a successful drama film as it reveals crucial details about characters and the film's plot. Set dressing can communicate to the audience who characters are and what events may have occurred in their past.

Performance and Appearance:

A character's costume can have a massive impact on the tone of a film. It can help the audience to identify a certain character and to understand the character's attitudes and feelings. The purpose of costuming is to dress an actor according to their character, but it can also be used to establish a hierarchy amongst characters and to attach a stereotype to them. This stereotypical aspect adds to the actuality and normality that a drama film should provide. Costume can also illustrate how a character has developed during the film - this is also emphasised by the actor's performance, and may be used to demonstrate a personality trait, e.g. a woman wearing red dresses would be seen as promiscuous. The relationship between character, costume, props and setting can either be cooperative or mismatched, allowing the elements to work together and produce a specific emotion for the audience to experience.

The hair and makeup are important aspects of a character's appearance. They are used to draw attention to specific features of a character's face and highlight the emotions and intentions reflected in their facial expressions and performance. Special effects makeup is commonly used in drama to effectively alter the character's appearance, e.g. ageing, wounds, body transformations etc.

 

Colour:

A colour palette is carefully chosen to be recurrent or contrasted as a film goes on. Particular colours of the palette can act as triggers for certain emotions and can connect to valuable moments in the narrative. Colour is strongly related to lighting and influences all elements of production design.

Props:

The word 'props' is short for 'property'. The inclusion and positioning of functional objects within a set for the drama genre is very strategic process. The director needs to make sure that the objects support the narrative in regards to time, that being past, present, and future. As drama films are based on occurrences in reality, drama films consist of props that are real items (e.g. drinking glasses, hats, table cloths etc.). Camerawork and lighting are closely linked with the effectiveness of props as they help to construct a meaning behind an object. Props help to indicate the genre of a film, as well as the era in which the film is set. A prop can also be used to represent different things about the characters in the film and can be significant to the character development.